FLINT, Michigan—Veterans
and rookies in the Flint City Derby Girls roller derby league played in
separate bouts this weekend, but they mutually shared a new
experience: a different place to play.

Saturday night, the Flint City Derby Girls made their debut
in Perani Arena, a new location after years of playing at Rollhaven Family Fun
Center. They still practice and scrimmage regularly at Rollhaven, but the
crowds for their games became too large to fit inside the venue.

The results were apparent on Saturday night: hundreds of
men, women and children crowded the bleachers and track-side chairs—"suicide seats,"
as the Derby Girls call them—to watch the two games. They will play five more
home games at the arena this season through October, and two away games in May
and June.

The veteran squad, Flint City Derby Girls A Team, lost to
Lansing's Mitten Mavens, 170-199. Flint's team of mostly rookies, the Grand Funk
Hellcats, lost their first game on the rink to Roseville's Eastside Derby Girls, 77-202.

Still, the team has come a long way since Mariah Scurry, 27,
became a member of the team five years ago. When she first signed up, she hadn't
played any sports aside from cheerleading, and she didn't know how to skate. She
joined up to meet new people - she says that the social element was the primary draw
of the team for a while. But the past few years have seen the athletic aspect take
a larger role, and the fans have followed suit. Many of the team members work
out together outside of practices and games.

"This team has changed a lot and been through a lot, just
like Flint has," Scurry explains. "It took a while to catch on, because the
audience didn't know what it was, but now they do.

"...It's a real sport, it's not just girls skating around in
skirts."

The Grand Funk Hellcats, who played their first game ever tonight, know firsthand how real the sport is. In the fall, they
went through an eight-week boot camp where they learned basic roller derby
skills: how to fall, hit and stop properly, bout rules, and more. They took a
skills test, and practiced—first among themselves, and later with their more
experienced Flint City Derby Girls leaguemates. Players who didn't pass the test, or who
are interested to play next season, can attend the team's roller derby crash courses at Rollhaven,
5315 S. Saginaw Road, Flint, every Monday except the last Monday of the month, from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. (The cost
is $5, and participants are asked to bring their own mouthguard.)

"You can see the jitters in their faces," Scurry smiled
while enjoying the Hellcats' bout against the Eastside Derby Girls. "You get nervous when there's
a crowd, and it's your first game, and there are strangers around. But after
the first half, they won't be as nervous. It's fun to watch people go through
what you went through in the beginning."

Scurry said that the team members have a strong sense of
loyalty to each other and to their home base. They helped a teammate with a
broken leg by taking care of her 24/7 for two weeks, and they work with area
organizations to raise money - Saturday's proceeds from their Kids' Zone were donated to the YWCA Safehouse.

"Some of these girls are stay-at-home moms, parents, and
professors," Scurry says. "You want to make your city proud, and have people
come back and have fun. It's just that intrinsic city pride, we want to be part
of the community. We're a family, but we're still a real competitive team."

Scurry said that the Flint City Derby Girls league hopes to gain
more teams so it can have more inner-league games. Until then, they will play
against teams in other leagues during its season, and play in tournaments that
other leagues host. Still, three-year veteran Bebe Kaboom, 31, is happy with Saturday's
turnout.

"We want to continue to fill seats, have good turnouts, and
get stronger athletically. When I started, our plan was to build from here,"
she says. "By the looks of tonight, we are."